The Feb. 24 Student Senate meeting began with reports from each of the student commissions. A notable report on campus housing initiatives was given by Housing Coordinator Evan Frawley, who shared that the Spring Walkthrough is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 10.
“This is our chance to walk through student rental areas with city council members and law enforcement to identify concerns in local neighborhoods,” Frawley said. “It’s a great opportunity in general to advocate for better on-campus living conditions and just have some direct conversations with decision-makers.”
More information on the event will be shared at a later date.
In new business, Information Technology Director Kyler Simonet motioned to table a new bill, 68-R-10, which was initially intended to be introduced at the meeting.
The bill was developed as a result of ITs 2024-2025 Student Technology Survey results, which found that 906 of the 1,217 students who took the survey said they prefer to use subtitles when watching online materials for class.
The bill is in support of the use of live captioning in classrooms when using Microsoft PowerPoint, a program all students, faculty and staff members have access to, for any and all on-campus activities and lectures.
“There are some people at [Learning and Technology Services] LTS who still want to look over this legislation before it’s brought to this body,” Simonet said. “Just tabling it until it is approved by all the right people.”
The motion to table the bill passed 33-0-2.
68-R-10 will be reintroduced at a later meeting once it is ready.
Moving into personnel, Parliamentarian Luke Mandali introduced the elections committee for the upcoming senate elections.
“This committee is made up of myself, one executive board member, two senators and a fifth student who doesn’t have to be a member of senate,” Mandali said. “We deal with election rule violations, election rule changes, actually counting the votes … In our bylaws there are sometimes things that come down to a coin flip.”
Mandali then nominated Academic Affairs Director Dylan Baker, who accepted and later rescinded the nomination, along with senator Matthew Lehner, who was not in attendance.
Equity in Student Matters Director Nelly Christelle then nominated Intergovernmental Affairs Director Brenna Strojinc, who accepted the nomination.
Director Strojinc was then appointed to the elections committee. Remaining members will be appointed in a future meeting.
The senate adjourned at 6:33 p.m. and will reconvene at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 3 in the Dakota Ballroom.
Braun can be reached at braunee6220@uwec.edu.
